El Paso County Highpoints

Mt Pittsburg – 8197’ and PT 8220’

RT Length: 6.63 miles

Elevation Gain: 2214’

DISCLAIMER: DON’T DO WHAT I DID!!!

I went back and forth on whether or not to post this, but I pride myself on posting honestly and openly, and I think this information can help others. I believe in respecting private property, and am always on the lookout for signage. I’ve turned back on several hikes when I’ve seen a sign indicating I shouldn’t be there. Also know I took direction from others who’ve already done this route, albeit it quite a few years ago. It is no longer a good idea to summit these peaks this way. It seems a lot has changed in this area in the past few years: I encountered roads not on topo maps, so there is most likely an easier way to summit.

I drove slowly the last 2 miles to where I parked, following a large, industrial truck. The roads were icy from the overnight storm, so I didn’t mind going slow. I kept looking for a good place to park, and maybe it was the recent snow, but there just wasn’t one along the entire drive in. Finally, just before reaching the quarry, I saw a place I could park. I pulled over, backing up a few times to make a nice parking space in the snow, and looked around. I didn’t see any ‘no parking’ or ‘no trespassing’ signs, so I sat there for 15 minutes, putting on my gear. Here’s where I parked, just in front of an open gate, near a mailbox

As I did so, several large trucks passed me. I assumed they were workers going to work for the day. I waved. I got out of my truck and proceeded up the road a few yards, then turned right and headed east up the ridge. The entire time I was in sight of the quarry office. I never crossed a fence or a ‘no trespassing’ or a ‘private property’ sign.

This hike was full of bushwhacking. There were no established trails, so I took game trails where available. The game here didn’t seem to get taller than my waist.

From the ridge, here’s looking at the quarry office. I would like to note I had a red bandana and was quite visible due to the fresh snow. No one tried to tell me I wasn’t supposed to be there or follow my obvious tracks in the snow to talk with me about my intentions. I’m sure they have bullhorns at facilities like this, right? Surely I was within range of bullhorn communication if I was doing something wrong. But no, I was simply enjoying my hike, and at this time thought nothing amiss.

Once on the ridge I followed it north, until I came to a…. road?!?!?!?

I followed this road, which I eventually found was called Henry Ride Heights. When it crossed with Phantom Canyon View I turned left and continued following the road to the towers. There were loud, barking dogs here.

Once at the towers the road ended, so I followed the ridge as it wound north

This ridge goes up and down and up and down. The scrub oak is particularly unsettling, but on a positive note it was mostly dead and broke away when I hiked past. Here’s the summit of Mt Pittsburg

Here’s looking back at the route in

It doesn’t look like this summit gets a lot of hikers. I placed a summit register and was on my way

My next goal was PT 8220. I wasn’t sure where it was exactly from Mt Pittsburg, as the weather wasn’t cooperating. For reference, this is the peak and my overall route

I started out by heading northeast down to the saddle.

It should be noted the bushwhacking never got better for this entire hike. In fact, it kept getting worse, so I’ll stop mentioning it. I’d just like to point out if I were doing this any other time of the year I most likely would have come out with dozens of ticks. Once at the saddle I then climbed the rib/ridge to PT 8220, making several ups and downs along the way

Here’s looking back on Mt Pittsburg

And some more pictures of the ridge hike to PT 8220

Here’s a look at the summit of PT 8220

I wasn’t sure where the exact summit was, so I walked all over, and yes, even sat on that ‘point’

I left a summit register, and turned to head west down the mountainside

I headed down, following a sort of steep gully, until it hit a ravine, and then I followed the ravine down to a road. It took me 2.75 miles of hiking down this ravine from the summit of 8220 to make it to the road. Here are some highlights:

I found an old structure along the way. This truly was in the middle of nowhere: very overgrown and not even game trails here.

I was so excited when I finally made it to the road! I followed it south

I passed a generator and a fire extinguisherand thought that was odd?

Then I came upon tire tracks. I was now elated, because I knew I’d soon be back to my truck

Well, elated, until I saw this:

Ugh!!! My map told me I was to walk a road next to the Quarry, not THROUGH it! I was probably 200 yards from my truck at this point, and by looking at my map I knew the only option I had was to continue walking along the road. I briskly followed the side of the road, keeping my head pointed straight ahead. There weren’t any ‘no trespassing’ signs, but I did not feel comfortable. I wanted out of here right away, but I also knew my only option was to continue forward. I felt a sigh of relief when I passed workers and they didn’t seem to care I was there. Here’s a picture of the office (after I’d passed it).

My relief was short lived though: About 20 yards away from my truck a man drove up from behind me and rolled down his window:

“We were looking for you earlier. You’re not supposed to be out here without a hard hat”.

I thought that was a curious thing to say, but apologized just the same and he drove away. Immediately afterwards another man pulled up behind me. He was a little more upset, and told me he’d called the cops on my vehicle because he hadn’t known who it belonged to. I was nice to him, and let him know I hadn’t intended on ending up in the middle of their operations and I just wanted out of there as fast as possible: I’d looked for ‘private property’ and ‘no trespassing’ signs and hadn’t seen any this entire hike, including where I parked (OUTSIDE of the open gate, I might add). It wasn’t until I made it back to the road near the quarry I began to think anything was amiss. He said there was a sign located somewhere behind a sign (I never saw it).

I apologized, and got a lecture on hiking alone and mountain lions (“You shouldn’t be out here alone, little lady”). I refrained from saying anything, but I did grit my teeth on how he was lecturing me. I got the feeling he was only doing it because I’m a woman. After all, I know of two other men who’ve taken this route, and when they passed the Quarry (described to me differently before this attempt: I’d been under the impression the public road went NEXT to the Quarry, not through it) the men said the workers just waved them on as they hiked by. I wanted to give him a lecture on proper signage and procedures that should have been taken BEFORE calling police, but I held my tongue. Once again, I apologized and he let me be on my way.

So, now I’m expecting the cops to show up at my house at any moment to talk to me about trespassing charges.

Oh, and here’s a topo map of my route. Also, I don’t’ recommend taking it.

Knights Peak – 10490, McKinley Peak (UR) – 10450, San Luis Peak – 10460, PT 10100 & PT 9410

RT Length: 10 miles

Elevation Gain: 4094’ (debatable?)

Time: 7 hours

Partner: Steffen

Another day of local highpointing! Today I’d wanted to hit 5 highpoints off Old Stage Road and Steffen volunteered to go with me to practice some routefinding below treeline. It was snowing (lightly) when we made it to the first parking spot. Actually, the drive took what seemed like forever because I was careful driving on the icy road. I had to turn around a few times before finding a big enough space to park my truck while avoiding drifts and ended up parking a little ways further than I’d wanted to.

We donned our microspikes, left the snowshoes in the truck, and headed west along Old Stage Road. There isn’t a trail on this one (or if there is it was covered in snow) so we just walked up this slope and continued southeast up the ridge

Knight’s Peak, McKinley Peak, and San Luis Peak

There was snow here, and a lot of downed trees. I let Steffen route-find since he’s learning. In places where I would have zig-zagged to avoid branches he just knocked down the ones in the way. My bandana kept getting caught on branches (and eventually ripped in half).

About half way up the ridge we ran into an old set of tracks and decided to follow them up

The tracks led to a rock formation

This rock formation had a class 3/4 chimney we used a strategically placed log to climb. This part was unexpected and fun!

Looking down the chimney

From here we continued southeast towards the summit

The summit block had a rather fancy trail register

We didn’t sign the register, but we did climb up on the rock to make sure we tagged the high point. From here we had a great view of our next objective: Unranked McKinley Peak. Here’s an overview of the route we took

Heading down from Knights Peak was fun! We passed some stashed firewood, which made no sense to us since this place was littered with fallen trees

We headed towards the saddle and then up the ridge. There were some neat rock formations here too.

Check out the view of Knights Peak! When you descend this peak be sure to stay to the north.

There’s a bit of a false summit to McKinley, but the actual summit isn’t that far away.

We went up these rocks

Skirted this rock formation to the right (south)

Carefully maneuvered our way up this ramp

And noticed the summit of San Luis Peak was to the right (east)

So we downclimbed the rock we were on to the left (west), skirted the large rock and re-climbed with a little scrambling back to the east

And headed towards the summit

This part was definitely class 3-4 climbing! It reminded me of the summit block on Sunlight in the Chicago Basin, but a bit longer

This part was challenging for me because it required taking off my gloves. The rocks were cold and covered in a thin layer of snow, so my fingers weren’t very useful. I did summit however, and took some photos for fun.

Here’s looking back on the other two peaks we’d already summited this morning

Steffen headed down the summit block first. He wanted to climb the other tower, which we both agreed seemed to be about 10 feet lower than the summit of San Luis Peak

I slowly made my way down, being careful not to slip because there was no way to catch myself. Ropes would be a good idea on this part. Helmets too.

We fixed the cairns (they were pointing towards the lower of the two spires)

And headed back down the rocks. Here’s the route we took, using the tree for added support.

Once again, there was no path down this mountain. We just zig-zagged our way down through the trees toward the road. It was very steep, and I was glad we’d decided to take this way down instead of up.

We came across a cool cave that would make a great den. We didn’t see any tracks near here in the snow, so we assumed it was vacant

Steffen stopped to make a snow angel

And we exited the trees and followed the road back to my truck

Here we could have taken a short cut between the mountains back to my truck, but the snow was too deep. If we’d had snowshoes it wouldn’t have been a problem though

Our next peak was a little ways away, so after getting back to my truck we drove on Old Stage Road back the way we’d come and found a parking spot at the base of 10100.

10100

There was less snow here but we kept on our microspikes, not sure of what we’d encounter. The first part of this climb was steep and ascended through lots of brush and trees, both alive and dead

We angled slightly left up the mountain until we came to a rocky area. We rock hopped up the rocks

And came to rocks that were not climbable, so we skirted the formation to the left

And went up a small gully

We turned left at the top of the gully and followed the ridge to what we thought was the highpoint, but was really a false summit. From here we could see the true summit of 10100, more to the north of us. We could also see increasing clouds.

It was a short hike over to the true summit. Here we found a summit register and Steffen signed it (I don’t usually sign them, but added my WW for good measure).

The wind picked up and snow flurries began, so we decided to head back to my truck. It was amazing how different the trail looked on the way back with no visual cues to help with route finding. On the way in I’d kept looking back at the mountains to remember how to exit, yet now the snow was so enveloping it covered our earlier tracks and I was unable to see any mountains.

In the snow we had a little trouble finding the correct gully to descend, but eventually found it and made our way back to the road.

9410

With all this unexpected snow we debated our final peak of the day, but once we made it to the trailhead we decided to go for it. Peak 9410 is an easy hike on an established trail for 80% of the time, and a good introduction to easy route finding and peakbagging. We parked at the top of a hill at the trailhead for Gray Back Peak and headed southeast on a scree and snow filled trail.

This trail quickly became snow packed, but there was a nice trench to follow

We hiked it up past point 9153 and descended a bit, losing about 150 feet in elevation before regaining it and reaching the top of a hill. The trail continues south here towards Gray Back Peak, but we found this marker on a tree and left the trail, heading east.

Every so often we’d see a cairn or surveyors tape, letting us know we were on the right track. We headed east and once we reached the ridge northwest towards the summit

Once again, the summit views weren’t all that great due to the snow/clouds, but the short trek had totally been worth it.

We found a summit register but didn’t bother to sign it

And instead headed back down the mountain

And back to the truck

We made it back to my truck at 2:30pm, making this a 10 mile hike with 4094’ of elevation gain in 7 hours, with a couple of trailhead drives in the middle.

But those numbers are debatable. Steffen’s numbers were drastically different than mine. We both used Strava to track our progress, and hiked the entire time together, yet his elevation gain read in the 5000’ range, while mine was in the low 4000’. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Our mileage was off too, making me wonder what’s up with the disparities. Have my numbers been artificially low, or are his high?

Cheyenne Mountain – 9565, The Horns – 9212 & Sugarloaf Mountain – 9633

RT Length: 10.5 miles

Elevation Gain: 4712’

Time: 6 hours 15 min

Partner: Steffen

With the weather iffy in the high country I decided to tackle one of my 2020 goals early: climb 3 El Paso County Highpoints. Steffen is training to hike 14ers this year so I invited him to go along. Before heading out I used Caltopo to make a route of the drive in, not being sure just how Old Stage Road would look this time of year. It ended up being almost completely clear of snow. I parked near the stables.

Cheyenne Mountain 9565’:

Just to clarify, we summited the highpoint of Cheyenne Mountain. There have been articles written and news posts stating the Dixon Trail goes to the top of Cheyenne Mountain: It doesn’t. The Dixon Trail goes through Cheyenne Mountain State Park and up the side of the east side of the Cheyenne Mountain range near the communication towers, but it doesn’t summit anything, and in fact if you were to go off trail and scramble to the top of Robbers Roost you’d still be over 100 feet shy and about a mile of bushwhacking away from the true summit of Cheyenne Mountain. Here’s topo proof: On the left is the true summit of Cheyenne Mountain, and on the right is where the Dixon Trail takes you.

In any event, at 6:30am it was 14 degrees outside when we donned our gear (microspikes) and headed east over a snow bank and up the mountainside, dipping about 200 feet before starting the ascent.

This hike was entirely below treeline with no distinct trail so we just aimed for the ridge and ascended the mountain on its west side. The ground had many dry spots but we tried to stick to the snow as much as possible so we’d see our footprints upon our return.

About three quarters of the way up the mountain we started running into cairns and surveyors tape, which was a nice surprise (until they stopped). We also found some bear scat that looked to be from last fall. This seemed a good area to find a bear.

Once on the ridge we came across some mountain lion tracks that looked to be a few days old. This area also seemed like a good place for a mountain lion to den, with a lot of large rocks and boulders to hide in. We followed the ridge left (north) to the summit.

Once at the summit we found a summit marker! This was cool because it was totally unexpected.

Our summit views included Colorado Springs, Almagre with Pikes Peak, and The Spanish Peaks

Summit Picture

There was about 6 inches of snow on the ground towards the top so we followed our tracks back down the ridge

Cheyenne Mountain wasn’t our only goal for today, and after looking at a topo map we didn’t want to re-ascend the hill that led back to the parking area. We decided to traverse the north side of the mountain instead. There was more snow on the north side and we were frequently knee deep in powder

But after just a few minutes we came across the MacNeill trail, and check it out: it had tracks!

The Horns 9212’:

This was awesome! We just followed the class 1 trail as it curved northeast around the mountainside

It can be tempting at times to veer off trail, so be sure to stick to the side of the mountain. There were downed trees everywhere. There is also a lot of up and down, meaning you’ll gain elevation on the way out as well.

We came across an old water pump and frozen waterfall/stream

There were broken pipes littering the trail from here just about up to the summit, as well as varying depths of snow. We kept our microspikes on.

We made it to the top of the ridge and now lost elevation as the trail continued on the east side of the mountain and then snaked back to the west side. Here’s where the tracks ended, but luckily the trail was still easy to follow. There was more snow on the east side.

The trail snaked back around to the left (west side) and into an area filled with boulders. There was one spot that was tricky to pass due to the snow, but with the help of microspikes and trekking poles it wasn’t too bad. I didn’t touch the pipe.

We continued on the trail as it once again curved east around the mountainside

And came across a trail sign

We followed the trail towards what looked most likely to be the summit on top of a rocky area

We came across cabins, which I wasn’t prepared for. There wasn’t a camp on my topo map (Pikes Peak Atlas). It didn’t look like anyone was at camp today so we continued on towards the highest point, which seemed to be up these stairs

At the top of the stairs was a large boulder and what looked to be a fire tower.

We climbed the boulder carefully (class 3) and looked around. It seemed this was the summit, so we took a few pictures. There was a puddle of ice over what we assumed was the summit marker (if there was one?)

As we looked around it was unclear if we were at the true summit or if the rock about 15 meet away but near the cabin was the true summit, so we downclimbed and walked up the stairs of the fire tower. This was referred to as “The Horns” so it made sense there were two rocks.

The points looked to be about even, with the one on the north maybe just a little higher? It was here we noticed the security cameras. There were many and although we weren’t doing anything wrong we decided to leave. From the tower we could tell this place was bigger than we’d thought (later we realized this is “Cloud Camp” owned by the Broadmoor).

Time to head back down. The boulders here really look fun to climb/rappel.

We hiked along the MacNeill trail for a little ways and suddenly came across a small wooden gate in the middle of the trail. Why hadn’t we seen this before? We walked around a bit and realized the gate had a sign that said “Trail Closed”

Whoops! Due to the switchbacks and amount of snow we’d never even seen the sign! Check this out: this is the way we hiked in, and the red circle is where the sign is located

As you can see, from the trail going to the summit the gate closure isn’t obvious, but on the way back down or from a different angle you can see it perfectly. In fact, you run into it.

I’m not sure about the legalities here, but it seems they don’t want the public highpointing on their property. They need to work on the placement of their signage if this is the case. This was the only sign we saw.

We continued to head back down and got a good glimpse of the fire tower (a fire tower wasn’t on my topo either?)

There was also a good view of our way in/back out

And of Pikes Peak (etc). I had fun naming all of the summits from here…

On the way back we decided to follow the footprints on the trail instead of our tracks back the way we’d come (if we could avoid it we didn’t want to re-ascend the hill). This ended up being a great idea and in no time at all we could see Old Stage Road and my truck. This trail ended just where we’d began, it just went more north than east (the way we’d begun)

We made it to my truck at around 12:30pm, but our day wasn’t over yet.

Sugarloaf Mountain 9633’:

Without taking off our gear we drove further along Old Stage Road and parked directly at the base of Sugarloaf Mountain.

It looked like a quick hike to the top of this El Paso County Highpoint, so we headed off into the trees, starting at the surveyors tape tied around a pine.

If there was a trail here it was covered in snow, so we just trekked south, straight up the hillside. This area was steeper, covered in more snow, and more heavily treed than the other mountains had been today. Downed trees made the trek ‘fun’

When we were about 30 yards from the summit we came across a trail, which started from the opposite side of the mountain (south) and worked north. We hadn’t taken this established trail because I believed it started on Private Property (but couldn’t be sure). In any event, I didn’t want to push my luck.